Criminal Procedure
Ordinance-fury-Right of Crown to
order jurors to stand by-Report
of Trial fudge-Verdict of fury
set aside by Court of Appeal and
a different verdict substituted.
Though the Criminal Procedure
Ordinance makes no reference to
the right of the Crown to order
a juror to stand by, such right
exists by virtue of the Common
Law.
The appellants were convicted of
murder. The trial Judge reported
that. he feared that there had
been a miscarriage of justice.
The Court of Appeal took the
trial Judge's report into
consideration and certain
inconsistencies in the evidence
for the Crown, and being of
opinion that there must have
been great provocation to make
appellants act as they did,
substituted a verdict of
manslaughter.
Henley
Coussey, E. C. Quist
and O. Awere for the
Appellants.
The Acting Solicitor-General
L. E. V. M'Carthy for the
Crown.
The judgment of the Court, which
consisted of Hall, Acting
C.J. the Gold Coast Colony,
MicheJin and Sawrey-Cookson, J.J.,
was delivered by Hall, Acting
c.J. as follows :-
The appellants in this case were
convicted on two counts of the
murder of Yerima Kotokoli and
Mama Kotokoli at Asamangkese on
the night of 5th May, 1931.
Although the trial should,
according to law, have taken
place in the Eastern Province,
yet, on the application of
counsel for the accused and with
the concurrence of Counsel
representing the Crown, I, as
Acting Chief Justice,
transferred the case to a
special Divisional Court at
Sekondi, it being alleged that
it was unlikely that a fair
trial could be obtained at Accra
on the ground of local
prejudice.
At the opening of the case at
Sekondi the Acting
SolicitorGeneral, who
represented the Crown, caused a
large number of jurymen to "
stand by," and it was contended
by Counsel for the appellants
before this Court that in view
of the provisions of the
Criminal Procedure Ordinance no
such right existed in the Crown.
In our view it is clear that the
Crown still retains this right.
Under section 14 of the Supreme
Court Ordinance the Common Law
of England is in force within
the jurisdiction ()f this Court.
It is true that as regards
practice and procedure the
Supreme Court is to follow the
Criminal Procedure Ordinance so
far as that Ordinance indicates
what the practice and procedure
to be followed is, and this
brings me to sections 124 and
125 of that Ordinance. Section
124 forbids any challenge to the
array and allows three
peremptory challenges to an
accused person, whilst section
125 deals with challenges for
cause.
Turning to the 28th Edition of
Archbold's Criminal Pleading
Evidence and Practice it is
found that at Common Law the
Crown might challenge
peremptorily any number of
jurors.
This power was taken away by 33
Edward I, Cap. 4, which was
subsequently repealed by 6 Geo.
IV, Cap. 50, but the later
statute re-asserted that
the Crown could only challenge
for cause ...
It is clear, however, from the
cases of
R. v. Parry,
7 C. and P. page 836, and
R. v. Geach,
9 C. and P. page 499, that the
old right of "standing by" still
remained with the Crown despite
the afore-mentioned Statutes.
In effect, therefore, the
relevant sections in our
Procedure Ordinance contain
similar provisions to the
English Law, and since our
Ordinances are as silent as the
English Statutes in regard to
the right of the Crown to "
stand by" it would seem that the
old Common Law right of the
Crown in that respect survives
here as in England.
I might perhaps add that the
right to " stand by " has been
always exercised by the Crown in
this Colony within the memory of
the members of this Court, which
extends over a number of years.
We found it necessary under rule
43 of the West African Court of
Appeal Rules to request the
learned Judge who presided at
the trial in the Court below to
furnish us with a general report
of the trial. We did not
consider it expedient to
disclose to Counsel the full
contents of that report, but we
saw fit, when the Court sat
yesterday for the third day's
argument, to inform the Acting
Solicitor-General that the trial
Judge in his report had, to all
intents and purposes, intimated
that he apprehended a
miscarriage of justice owing to
the attitude of the jury when
delivering their verdict.
This of course was a most
serious suggestion and we
referred Counsel to
R. v. Scranton,
15
Cr. App. R. at page
110, and
R. v. Frank Rive,
20
Cr. App. R. at page
23, in which cases the weight to
be attached to the opinions of
the trial Judge by the members
of the Court of Appeal was
careful1y considered. I do not
feel it necessary to set out
those judgments at length as
they were fully discussed during
the argument before us.
Together with the expression of
opinion by the trial Judge, to
which I have referred above,
must, I think, be considered a
motion which was filed in the
Court below by Counsel
representing the Asamangkese
Stool and the Kotokoli Chief, in
effect asking for leave to take
an independent part in the
prosecution. This motion was
heard by the court below whilst
the trial was in progress.
It is true that the jury were
sent out of the Court whilst the
motion was being argued, but it
must be perfectly obvious to
anyone who knows local
circumstances that the purpose
of the motion must have become
known to the jury, who in this
country are not" locked up "
during the continuance of a
murder trial as in England. It
is abundantly clear that the
motion should never have been
filed, and it is very possible
that the suggestions in the
affidavit in support of that
motion may have created a false
atmosphere in the case so far as
the jury were concerned.
It
is significant as Counsel for
the appellants pointed out,
that, the day after this motion
was dealt with, the jury should
have applied for an inspection
of the
locus-in-quo,
one of the very things asked for
in the afore-mentioned
affidavit.
(Vide
paragraph 7 thereof)
The opinion of the trial Judge as
to the attitude of the jury
already referred to, coupled with
the atmosphere almost certainly
created in the minds of the jury
by the aforesaid motion, have
caused the members of this Court
the gravest anxiety.
Turning to the facts of the case,
which it is not proposed in this
judgment to consider in detail in
view of the very full hearing
accorded to them during the
argument, we do not think, after
very careful consideration, in
view of certain, in our opinion,
serious inconsistencies in the
evidence for the Crown, that that
evidence was adequate to support
convictions for murder. Further
this Court is of opinion, taking
the evidence as a whole, and
looking at it in every way, that
there must have been great
provocation to the appellants to
cause them to act as they did, and
the Court considers appellants
were guilty of culpable homicide
amounting not to murder but to
manslaughter.
Taking into consideration all the
circumstances of this case, which
I have indicated above, we think
that the proper course to adopt is
to substitute for the verdict of
murder on each count against the
appellants a verdict of
manslaughter. This Court
accordingly passes the following
sentences in substitution for the
sentences passed at the trial :-
First Appellant-Imprisonment for
three years with hard labour on
each count, sentences to run
concurrently.
Second Appellant-Imprisonment for
four years with hard labour on
each count, sentences to run
concurrently.
All sentences to run from date of
the convictions in the Court
below. |